Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Just what *is* Jimbo's role anyway? - "nofollow"decision On 3/22/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
This type of informality may have worked in the developmental stage of WP, but is it capable of sustaining the Project as it becomes more complex?
I just have to add a strong yes to this! Distributed decision making and organic processes are new for organizations this large, but that doesn't mean they are bad.
I would ask another question, Are old forms of hierarchical control and management capable of sustaining something so complex as wikipedia? :)
I have yet another take on it. I think that _in reality_ most large organizations _do_ operate like Wikipedia--or at least more like Wikipedia than the org charts suggest--and thus Wikipedia's governance is not anywhere near as novel as people think.
What's different about Wikipedia is that Wikipedia acknowledges the truth and describes its governance openly.
In traditional organizations everyone _pretends_ that things are more rigid, authoritarian, and command-and-control than they really are. Yet it is a common observation that the people "in charge" are unable to "fight the bureaucracy." And the relationship between, say, "the law" (about speed limits or sexual behavior or the use of illicit drugs) and what people (and the police) actually _do_ is complicated and surprisingly loose.